The June 8 killing of eight children by a knife-wielding man at an Osaka elementary school has inevitably rekindled the old debate about whether — and how much — judicial authorities should be able to intervene when dealing with mental patients accused of committing serious crimes.
It is a debate that has gone nowhere for decades. While advocates of judicial involvement say it's an overdue protection of public safety, opponents argue it would be impossible to graft an effective and just program of judicial psychiatry on top of a psychiatric system that has for so long been neglected and ineffective.
The suspect in the massacre, Mamoru Takuma, 37, avoided indictment due to mental disorder in a 1999 case in which he was accused of poisoning the tea of his coworkers.
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